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I would really hate to have all my files encrypted and inaccessible. I'd probably just pay the $500 with much begrudge.

That being said, as soon as I would get the encryption key and get my files back, I would post everywhere that the hackers did NOT give me the key after I paid the $500.

It's kind of like game theory. If enough people do the same, then fewer people would actually pay up, or the price would drop lower, thus proving an advantage for the victims.

Posting in the damn NYT that the hackers are true to their word assures that they have credibility, and just torpedoes the strategy above. In the same way that it's valuable for them to get the word out that they are (kinda) honest, it would be valuable for the victims to get the word out that they are crooked. Being the marketing and pricing geniuses they seem to be, they would surely lower the price if they had bad publicity. So in the name of future victims, I would like to sarcastically thank you Alina for giving those fuckers ammo. They'll probably raise their price now.

Take self driving cars for example. Once they're good enough to be on the road safely, insurance companies will notice that their accident statistics are lower than human drivers. So first of all they'll lower the insurance for them.

I agree, it only makes sense.

Somewhat later they'll put up insurance for human drivers.

This makes not sense at all. Why would they increase insurance for humans? Do you think humans will become more dangerous and reckless than they are now? Just because there are more self driving cars on the road? I completely disagree. I'd think that humans will be less prone to getting into accidents precisely because they'll be surrounded by more self driving cars, which are more predictable, better able to avoid accidents caused by another party, and won't give people road rage by acting like jerks.

Then after that some companies will refuse insurance for any manually driven car. Then they all will.

What's the logic behind that? Insurance companies refusing to insurance which is profitable for them?

And not long after that governments will ban human driven vehicles entirely from public roads.. I reckon this time frame will be about 30-50 years.

Here you're starting to make sense again. Conclusion seems straightforward - if the self driving cars are more efficient, less accident prone and faster than human driven cars, then as a society, we would prefer a fully automated transportation system. Remember that for the vast majority of us, going from point A to point B is a chore. We just want to get to point B as soon and as hassle-free as possible.

Now this might come as a surprise to some of the technokids out there - but some of us actually *like* driving and don't want a computer doing it for us.

Sure, no surprise, there are people who like sailing, walking, riding the high wheel, why wouldn't some people like driving? The question is would you still drive if you have a faster and less stressful, even maybe a more productive way of getting to point B? Moreover, you probably like driving because you've been doing it for a long time and you grew up in a culture that does it a lot. In a few decades, people will be growing up with self driving cars all around them. Actually driving will be an activity practiced by few. It might even become a hipster thing.

As fas as building AI goes, this famous quote is very valid - just because they can doesn't mean they should.

I find that quote meaningless. X doesn't imply Y is one of the weakest and least informative relationships.

Currently, heart disease is the SECOND most common cause of death in the world. I do believe that artificial hearts are going to be the future. But when this first goes mainstream things are going to get ridiculous. Where do I start?

Are popstars going to come up with songs about giving you the IP to their heart?
Are people going to find a heartbleed vulnerability ironic?
Can you leave the heart to someone else in your will?
Will you give the Crypto Key to your heart to the person you love?
Will a DDoS on an implanted heart be called a distributed heart attack?
Will an upgrade to a newer model be called a change of heart?
If you configure your heart rhythm to follow the interaction with a person. Will you tell them "I have my heart set on you?"
If you break the security protocol, are you breaking people's hearts?
If you download the Pledge of Allegiance into your implant, will you know it by heart?
If my heart's kernel gives an error message, will it be from the bottom of my heart?

Thank you, I'll be here all week. I've got more, but I don't have the heart to continue right now.

The only reason that the codec would influence the outcome is if it would generate artifacts that are somehow informative of the direction of time. In practice, codecs aim to keep as much information as possible while reducing the required space by finding regularities in the video. If the quality is sufficiently high, there would be next to no artifacts. Only in cases where the quality is extremely low there are tell-tale signs of the direction of time. Everyone has seen damaged Xvid movies I assume.

You're imposing an arbitrary abstraction on a complicated natural phenomenon.
Space *is* not doing anything. We observe things in the real world and we construct useful models that contain notions such as "time" and "space".

In this particular case, time is analogous to the frame index of the video. If that index is increasing, time is moving forward. If it is decreasing, time is moving backwards in this video. Everybody understands what it means so stop being pedantic.